Classified Documents Leak Narrative Doesn’t Add Up

Anyone who has had a security clearance and worked in a classified document environment must be scratching their head as the details of the leaks and alleged leaker have dribbled

out and it has been revealed that the "leaker” was a 21-year-old Massachusetts Air National Guard E-3.

For those of you used to the old enlisted ranks nomenclature that’s a Private First Class. As long as they show-up on time and keep their hair trimmed Air Force personnel advance to airman first class (E-3) when they graduate from technical school, or 20 weeks after graduation from basic training, whichever occurs first.

The alleged leaker, Jack Teixeira, was a Cyber Transport Systems journeyman. According to the Air Force, Cyber Transport Systems specialists are tasked with making sure the service’s “vast, global communications network” is “operating properly.” For some reason Airman First Class Teixeira had a Top Secret/SCI (Sensitive Compartmented Information) security clearance.

The basic, most fundamental element of the entire security clearance system is “need to know.” You can be a General, but if you don’t need to know a tranche of information to do your job it is not shared with you – that’s where the “compartmented” part of SCI comes in – and it has yet to be revealed why a 21-year-old E-3 needed to know any of the information revealed in the leaks.

This is important because Teixeira allegedly leaked documents that appear to be internal CIA documents that would never have been available to an Air National Guard “Cyber Transport Systems specialist” like Jack Teixeira.

Texeira was assigned to the 102nd Intelligence Wing at Otis Air National Guard Base, on Cape Cod, Massachusetts. The leaks are allegedly highly classified command-level material, not something that would go around as an FYI to random Air Guard personnel, even an Air Guard commander with no “need to know.” So, did Teixeira pull them from his commander’s computer, hack the CIA, pick them up from an Air Force cyber dumpster? No one is saying.

A second important leg of the security clearance process is the background investigation. If you pay your bills late, if you are financially vulnerable, if you are a heavy drinker or drug user, have a criminal history or have mental health issues you are unlikely to get a high-level security clearance.

“Mental health issues” is a pretty broad and ill-defined consideration. There was a time when being a homosexual (let alone being “transgender”) would have disqualified one from receiving a high-level clearance. That consideration has been gone for quite some time, even though it was certainly a factor in the crimes of Army Private Bradley Manning, who now goes by the name of Chelsea Manning, who was responsible for the largest theft of intelligence information in American history. Even more recently, transgender spies Major Anna Gabrielian and Jamie Lee Henry, tried to sell secrets to the Russians, but it doesn’t appear to be a consideration in the Teixeira case.

The “mental health issue” Teixeira seems to have manifested – if it even qualifies as an issue – is that of being a bit of an oddball. A loner, computer nerd, heavily into video gaming, militaria, and guns, and apparently somewhat immature, Teixeira wouldn’t have stood out as mentally unfit among today’s recruiting classes.

Indeed, today’s high-tech military probably needs computer nerds and high-level gamers like Jack Teixeira as much or more than it needs Jack Armstrong-type football captains and prom kings.

Which brings us back around to the point of this article – something doesn’t add up in the narrative about Teixeira that is being fed to us through the establishment media by the government.

Boston.com reported a member of the Discord chat group through which Teixeira leaked classified information spoke to the Associated Press about the conversations, but declined to give his name, citing concerns for his personal safety. The group, called “Thug Shaker Central,” drew people who talked about their favorite types of guns and shared memes and jokes, the person told the AP.

The group also included a running discussion about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. For months, a member nicknamed “the O.G.” posted reams of classified material, said the Discord member who confirmed that O.G. was Teixeira.

Teixeira liked to chat about guns, was an observant Christian and would often pray with group members, the fellow member said. In recent months, Teixeira had become disillusioned about the U.S. military and had begun to express “regret (about) joining” the person said. “He even said he’d kick my ass if I thought about joining.”

Teixeira also worried the federal government had become too powerful, according to the Discord user.

If all that sounds strangely familiar it’s because it is exactly the same narrative used to paint the January 6 protestors as “insurrectionists” and threats to the Democrats’ version of “democracy.”

So, who fed Jack Teixeira the leaked intel that even his commanding general didn’t have a need to know?

Teixeira, on many levels, looks like the perfect 21st century recruit, and the perfect patsy if you wanted to leak information about the war in Ukraine to suggest that America is not doing enough to help Ukraine defeat the Russians and more American involvement, and perhaps American boots on the ground – or in the air – are required to keep Ukraine in the fight.

The Jack Teixeira narrative doesn’t make sense to many of us who have worked in a classified document environment, but it makes perfect sense if you want to make those who see the folly of Biden emptying American military stockpiles to fuel the Ukrainian war effort look unpatriotic or even threats to “democracy.”

And there’s another tell that the Jack Teixeira narrative serves a bigger agenda – the immediate response from the intelligence community stenographers working at various establishment news media outlets that this leak demands more surveillance of the internet and especially more surveillance of gun enthusiasts, observant Christians and those who question the wisdom of Biden’s approach to the Russia – Ukraine war.

Stay tuned to see who gets scapegoated as threats to “democracy” and “Putin’s puppets” to prove my point.

George Rasley is editor of Richard Viguerie's ConservativeHQ.com and is a veteran of over 300 political campaigns. A member of American MENSA, he served on the staff of Vice President Dan Quayle, as Director of Policy and Communication for former Congressman Adam Putnam (FL-12) then Vice Chairman of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee's Subcommittee on National Security and Foreign Affairs, and as spokesman for retired Rep. Mac Thornberry, a member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and former Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee.

• Classified Documents leak

• Joe Biden administration

• Biden Ukraine policy

• 21-year-old Massachusetts Air National Guard E-3

• Jack Teixeira Cyber Transport Systems journeyman

• Top Secret/SCI (Sensitive Compartmented Information) security clearance

• 102nd Intelligence Wing Otis Air National Guard Base

• mental health

• Thug Shaker Central